this true of the quotations made by the Lord Jesus Himself, as reported in

the Gospels.

As Christianity spread, the Greek Bible went with it.  When, however,

the Jews realized what a powerful instrument the church possessed in the

Septuagint version, in the controversy concerning the Messiah, the Jews

repudiated it, and another Greek version was made by a certain Aquila.  This

version is an exceedingly literal rendering of the Hebrew, so much so that at

times it almost ceases to be intelligible.  Its value lies in its slavish

adherence to the Hebrew original.  The date of this version is about a.d.

150, and towards the close of the same century another Greek translation of

the Old Testament Scriptures was produced by Theodotion, a Christian of

Ephesus.  This version was a set-off against the version of Aquila, and

though based upon the authorized Hebrew text, is very free in its rendering.

Theodotion's version of Daniel, however, was so much better than the

translation contained in the LXX itself that it took its place, and only one

copy of the LXX has come down to us containing the original version.  About

a.d. 200 a further version was prepared by Symmachus, who seems to have

profited by the work of both Aquila and Theodotion.  'The special feature of

this translation is the literary skill and taste with which the Hebrew

phrases of the original are rendered into good and idiomatic Greek' (Kenyon).

The Hexapla of Origen.  It will be seen that by the beginning of the

third century, there were three Greek versions of the Old Testament in use,

in addition to the Septuagint.  This led the great Alexandrian scholar Origen

(a.d. 186-253) to produce the monumental work known as the Hexapla.  As the

word indicates, this was a 'sixfold' version of the Old Testament Scriptures,

as follows:

1

2

3

4

5

6

The Hebrew

in Greek

Origen's object was to bring the LXX into line with the existing Hebrew

text, and while his methods may be disappointing to students of the Greek

version, his work is a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the Hebrew

As a result of Origen's labours, increased interest in the Septuagint

version produced three more important editions, those of Eusebius, Lucian and

Hesychius.  These editors were practically contemporary (about a.d. 300), but

each version was circulated in a different region.

No further revision of the Septuagint is known to us, but we still have

to consider how it has reached us in this present century, for there is not

one original of any of the versions or editions now in existence.  The oldest

known copy of the Hebrew mss does not go back earlier than to the eighth or

ninth century.  The oldest copies of the Greek Bible are of far greater age,

and take rank with the most venerable of textual authorities.

A further account of some of these Manuscripts is given (on page 400 et

seq.) when dealing with the New Testament.  We give the names of some of them